The Line
by blueandblack
Summary: Jacob/Bella. Set at the end of Eclipse, ignores Breaking Dawn.


The vision haunted Bella.

_Children. _

She'd never thought of babies, not really. Not even when Rosalie had poured her heart out, agonized longing gushing out of her in compensation for her eternally dry eyes.

Babies hadn't been real to Bella then like they were now.

All that had been real was surreally beautiful Edward; the perfect angles of his face, his breath so intoxicatingly sweet, the subtly antiquated loveliness of his speech, the way his topaz eyes burned glitteringly into hers. These and the myriad other things, tiny and overwhelming alike, that made him so unmatchably unique.

All that had ever mattered was the love she felt for Edward, unbound and screaming inside her.

And she still felt that love. She absolutely still felt it.

But now there were little dark-haired children in another corner of her mind. And with them Charlie and Renee and Phil. And Billy.

And there was Jacob Black.

A new Jacob Black, one she wanted to kiss and touch and mould herself to.

When she closed her eyes she could feel his hands on her, his lips, his tongue, all hot and needing, all hers.

Bella turned restlessly in her bed.

Sleep was impossible with Edward away. Only his cooling touch, the low smooth hum of her lullaby could distract her from these thoughts.

Only Edward could take her mind off Jacob. Only his presence. She found that the mere thought of him wouldn't do, because when she saw him now, she saw him hunting with Emmett, and the blood and the horror of it obscured his angelic face in a way that they never had before.

The Cullens belonged to another world, she saw that now, really saw it. It had taken the pull of another future for Bella to understand the one she was choosing, but she did understand now. She understood fully what she was giving up and suddenly her last conversation with Jacob was all wrong. Collected, calm, orderly. The peace. What had that been about?

The whole thing had been _wrong. _

Jacob wasn't going to writhe and struggle against her, he wasn't going to fight to keep her alive till she was ripped in two. What was that? That wasn't him. That _wasn't_ him.

And Bella hadn't been herself either. Not _this_ self.

This thing that she felt right now, the almost-madness licking at her ribs? That belonged in her conversation with Jacob.

It was missing.

Bella knew what she had to do. She had to put it back. She had to fix their final scene, make it right. Somehow she had to twist it into sense.

She found herself creeping down the stairs, through the hall, past the kitchen, tip-toeing, afraid of the dull click of the front door, of Charlie's ears, of Alice's eyes.

She barely breathed until she reached the truck. Once inside she steeled herself, shoved the key in the ignition, jumped at the too-loud roar that erupted.

She had to hurry, she knew she had to be quick -

--

"I can't do it."

Bella comes to Jacob with those words in the middle of the night.

She throws pebbles at his window and it takes a moment for them to scatter their way through the now thin veil of morphine that has been busily protecting him from pain. From the kind of pain a drug understands, anyway.

_I can't do it._

It could mean so many things, but Jacob knows she wouldn't do that to him. She's hurt him a thousand ways, sure, but Bella wouldn't sit here on his bed in the middle of the night, pull him out of his almost-relief, let him see her tears, hear these words… She wouldn't do that unless it meant one thing and one thing only.

She's not going to let them change her.

The past two days have been a nightmare. Their last conversation has played over in his head and every time he has hated the way he let it end, hated the sweetness of the last _Love you's,_ so resigned, so over and done with.

He has toyed endlessly with the idea that the only thing that had been final was her choosing the vampire, that whether she would really want to _be_ one was still open to debate.

But he never once believed that it could be true.

"I can't cut myself off from you like that," Bella says, stretching out a pale hand that shines in the darkness. "Not forever. Not when I think about forever."

Jacob takes the hand and kisses it four or five times, maybe six. Knuckles, fingers, palm.

"Thank you," he says softly.

Her voice is tight when she mutters "You're welcome, I suppose. Even if I wish I didn't have to love you."

A second later she's sobbing wretchedly, _angrily,_ and Jacob is holding her, stroking her hair and trying to believe this is really happening, while she babbles things like "I'm so sick of this. I'm so sick of it." and "Why do I have to love you so much?"

The question, the bitterness curled up in it, is a faint stab in the gut.

But he doesn't care.

She can cry all she wants, hate him all she wants.

_I can't do it._

That's all that matters.

Jacob groans with the pleasure of her, warm and soft and yes, full of tears. He groans with the pleasure of knowing that she will stay that way till she's in the ground, that her body will always be on his side of the line even if her whole heart isn't.

Her head jerks from his chest and her eyes are small and hard.

"I'm still going to be with Edward." She says it sharply, defiantly.

"Okay," Jacob answers. He isn't surprised.

He isn't surprised, but Bella is.

"Okay?" she asks, hysteria fluttering in her throat. _"Okay?"_

He's nodding emptily, taking his arms away from her.

Bella gapes, fingers clutching at air.

"Don't you even want me? _Don't you even – "_

He kisses her. He knows he's pushing his luck, but he can't help it if she's going to be like that.

She brought this on herself, he decides, in the brief moment before all stable thought dissolves.

There's nothing like this freedom for Jacob, horizons blinking, heart racing all over the world like fingers on a map.

There's nothing like it when she kisses him back, breaks away to push him down onto the bed, drags herself chest to neck and lets him pull her flat against him.

His mouth is hot at her throat, whispering things.

"I want you, Bella." He tells her even though he shouldn't need to. "Jesus, you have no idea."

She takes the whispers away, kissing him, hands in his hair. It feels strong and alive. It feels like it could hold them together. She's clawing desperately at bandaged skin, hipbones grinding into black-red bruises. And yet there's no pain, there's nothing. There's only her.

The buttons fall apart easily under his hands and when he pushes her shirt over her shoulders Jacob swallows thick and hard. Calloused palms on her stomach make Bella's eyes squeeze shut, but she's still asking him questions, some sucked in, some spat out.

"Why do I have to love you? Why do I have to love you like this?"

It's too much for him. He wishes it wasn't but it is. He grabs her in a way that will leave marks on her fair skin, throws her down and straddles her, panting and close.

"Because we're it, Bella." He shakes his head, because she'll never understand, he knows she'll never understand. "This is it, can't you feel it?"

When he kisses her again there's a sparking and a gasp, because she's still meeting him, still open-mouthed and wet.

He lets his lips slip quickly down her neck to her collar-bone, pulls at the flimsy fabric of her bra, crumples it away into the wire and kisses the skin, presses his warm, rough cheek to her bared breast.

"Can't you feel that, Bells?"

She moans slowly, and her fingers are twitching against him, tapping some strange code into his shoulder blades.

"I'll never feel this with anyone else, never."

She seems to squeeze those words out of herself and they stun him.

Jacob stops short, braces himself over her, eyes dark and wide.

Bella's hands are at his waistband. A gentle tug.

She's smiling.

"Make love to me, Jake."

--

When he woke up he was doused in sweat and aching for her.

It had been a year, more than now. This shouldn't still be happening, it wasn't fair and it wasn't helpful. And yet there it was, every other night his subconscious chose to do this to him.

He had thought the dreams might stop once she had been turned. They hadn't.

Jacob wished they'd just fucking _stop._

--

- if she wanted to make it.

_I want to make it, I want to go to him, I have to, I have to. Jacob. Jake._

Bella's foot grazed the accelerator.

She would have pushed down, and hard, if her left hand hadn't glinted impossibly.

Things couldn't sparkle without light. She must have imagined it.

But she hadn't imagined the weight of the rock on her finger, the smooth band that tied her to Edward.

'Diamonds are forever.'

The TV had told her that once.

Bella twisted the key back around, ripped it out and held it to her chest like she wanted to force it inside herself.

The engine shuddered and died.

_I can't do it._

She was sobbing into the steering wheel when the front door opened and she heard Charlie call out.

"Bella? What the hell is going on? What's wrong?"

He was anxious, angry even.

She sighed, wiped at her face hurriedly, opened the door and tumbled out of the truck on two feet and a hand.

Charlie crossed his arms authoritatively, shot her a suspicious glare.

"What on earth were you doing in your truck in the middle of the night… in your pyjamas? Were you planning on going somewhere?"

Bella managed a weak smile.

"I don't know. No. It's nothing. I'm sorry."

_I'm sorry._

_I can't do it._


End file.
